The tag alias #51372 oc_character -> fan_character has been rejected.

Reason: nothing to say about this request...
seems obvious enough for me (Who created OC_c... and was to lazy to even try typing "origi..."?!).

EDIT: The tag alias oc_character -> fan_character (forum #308396) has been rejected by @Millcore.

Wait, who was that lazy? The C in OC already means character.

Isn't this the exact opposite? OC is an Original Character, a Fan Character is a non-canon character based on a preexisting copyright. I don't think a character based on a preexisting copyright can be considered wholly "original", but even ignoring that, the two would be unrelated; someone's OC doesn't have to be based on a preexisting copyright.

Personally, I think fan_character should be done away with. It's current definition, "a character that is based off of a franchise, series, or other copyright but is not a canon character", is too vague and wide-ranging. Every Sergal not created by or with explicit permission from Mick Ono and Kiki-Uma for their universe falls under this. Every depiction of a Pokémon (species) who isn't tied to someone who appeared in official material. Every Chuki without explicit permission from Roy Arashi for the universe they inhabit. There's also the vagueness of a pony drawn in a MLP style but which isn't clearly placed in the show's universe, or a Sonic style that isn't placed in any universe associated with official material (an art style is not "a franchise, series, or other copyright"). Incidentally, the wiki also mentions Fakémon as being fan characters... how? By definition, Fakémon aren't Pokémon, and Pokémon doesn't have a monopoly on fantasy animals or on a Sugimori drawing style for creatures.

On top of this, having specific characters imply fan_character is further muddying everything, as characters can change or have alternate depictions, where they aren't guaranteed to always be based on a preexisting copyright.

watsit said:
Isn't this the exact opposite? OC is an Original Character, a Fan Character is a non-canon character based on a preexisting copyright. I don't think a character based on a preexisting copyright can be considered wholly "original", but even ignoring that, the two would be unrelated; someone's OC doesn't have to be based on a preexisting copyright.

I don't think anyone else is making that distinction. There's a reason the original character do not steal meme is based entirely around fan characters.

watsit said:
On top of this, having specific characters imply fan_character is further muddying everything, as characters can change or have alternate depictions, where they aren't guaranteed to always be based on a preexisting copyright.

I do agree with this though, I'd be in favor of getting rid of those implications.

strikerman said:
I don't think anyone else is making that distinction.

I've seen plenty of people call their characters OCs even when they're not based on a preexisting copyright. They use the term specifically because it's not a fan character. I've seen some people also use it indiscriminately as to whether it's a "fan character" or not.

strikerman said:
There's a reason the original character do not steal meme is based entirely around fan characters.

I think that goes to prove the point. "While sometimes used literally to discourage fellow artists from stealing an artist's original character idea, it is more often used ironically to caption a picture of a character either obviously copied directly from an existing piece of pop culture or so sloppily rendered no one would want to steal it." The idea of taking a preexisting work to make it superficially different and try to call it an "original character" that's worth "stealing" is ludicrous, but some people tried to do it, so a meme was born to make fun of them. Sometimes, though, people use it more correctly, to refer to a character that is original and they don't want other people to use it without permission.

To be honest. Fan character is kind of a useless tag isnt it?

Like typing ATM_machine or Sahara_desert.

kemonophonic said:
Not really. It makes it easier to blacklist fan characters.

For some definition of "fan character". The whole issue is how it's defined and applied, which are important qualities to properly blacklist something. Given how vaguely it's defined and how randomly it's tagged, it doesn't make it effective. For someone that wants to blacklist fan characters, what makes this worthy of blacklisting but not this? What makes this not a fan character, given that it's a character based on someone else's species (with its own setting)? Could one not argue that this is a canon character within the Wanderlust setting, and so wouldn't qualify as being a fan character? What makes this worthy of blacklisting from other glaceon?

At the same time, wouldn't something like this technically qualify as fan characters? Despite being based on canon, it's the author's interpretation of the characters in their interpretation of the setting, that is in no way official canon.

watsit said:
I've seen plenty of people call their characters OCs even when they're not based on a preexisting copyright. They use the term specifically because it's not a fan character. I've seen some people also use it indiscriminately as to whether it's a "fan character" or not.

I was leaning more towards "fan character" and "original character" being wholly separate terms with clear boundaries.

strikerman said:
I was leaning more towards "fan character" and "original character" being wholly separate terms with clear boundaries.

Sure, it depends on who you ask. Someone may say an original character can't be a fan character, and someone else may say they can be. But that's the point... even being generous, an OC isn't always a fan character, so it's a bad alias.

watsit said:
Sure, it depends on who you ask. Someone may say an original character can't be a fan character, and someone else may say they can be. But that's the point... even being generous, an OC isn't always a fan character, so it's a bad alias.

oc and original_character are already aliased to fan_character because the majority of people who tag things with those tags are referring to fan characters. It's not worth keeping those tags when people don't treat them as separate concepts.

kemonophonic said:
I don't really mind what the tag is, as long as there's a way to blacklist fan-created original characters based on existing characters from a popular franchise drawn in the exact same style as the source material without having to add them individually to a blacklist.

Funny enough, the vast majority of pokemon fan_characters I've seen are not in the same style or based on/derived from existing characters. Maybe MLP and Sonic are different, but with Pokemon they're the creator's own character that happens to be a pokemon species, drawn in the artist's style that doesn't really match the source material, and has various markings, accessories, and styling differences that aren't designed after canon characters. Though sometimes, aside from the artist's personal art style there can be no visual distinction with fan characters separate from canon, while non-fan characters can just as well look non-canon. Consequently, someone blacklisting fan_character for your reasoning would be missing posts that don't meet the criteria, but would still get posts that do. Not to mention the whole swath of posts that are ambiguous (is this or this a fan character or a canon character? without being told, how could you determine this mewtwo is a fan character and this mewtwo is a canon character? or is that the other way around...?).

Further, how would you distinctly tag a (for example) non-canon Wanderlust character to distinguish it from a canon Wanderlust character, as the canon Wanderlust characters are currently getting tagged fan_character for being non-canon Pokemon characters? Canon-ception. For someone that doesn't mind species-based characters, but doesn't like characters being inserted into someone else's preexisting setting alongside that setting's canon characters.

A Fan Character is technically an OC but not every OC is a Fan Character.

@All the downvoters - quote from the fan_character wiki page:

The following tags are aliased to this tag: oc, original_character, originalcharacter, oc_only, sonic_fan_character, oc_pony, custom_character, sonic_fancharacter, fc, fancharacter, pokesona, ocs, ponysona (learn more).

jayfiregrowlithe said:
A Fan Character is technically an OC but not every OC is a Fan Character.

How? What's your definition of OC? What is the distinction to Fan Character?

1. OC = Original Character (thought up by the artist themselves)
or
2. OC = Official Character? (the opposite)

The first one is the way I see OC used by artists and the like but that doesn't mean I agree with that definition.

I vote to ban OC tags all together because it's not clearly established what it means and instead establish the official_character tag (applied to all posts with depictions of official characters).
This way one could for example search for zootopia official_character -fan_character to find images with only official characters.

kalider said:
How? What's your definition of OC? What is the distinction to Fan Character?

1. OC = Original Character (thought up by the artist themselves)
or
2. OC = Official Character? (the opposite)

A Fan Character is a non-canon character created for some preexisting setting. Literally a fan-created character for some setting they're a fan of. An OC is an Original Character, which is an original creation. Depending on how "original" an original character would need to be, this can exclude Fan Characters since a character created to be part of someone else's setting is by definition not original, but based in part on someone else's work, or it can include Fan Characters if you separate the character from the style and setting it was made for (essentially stripping the "fan" part out of it)... but in either case, an Original Character is not synonymous with Fan Character as a character can be one and not the other.

kalider said:
I vote to ban OC tags all together because it's not clearly established what it means and instead establish the official_character tag (applied to all posts with depictions of official characters).
This way one could for example search for zootopia official_character -fan_character to find images with only official characters.

I vote to invalidate OC tags and fan_character. Or at the very least, deimplicate OC tags and individual characters from fan_character, invalidate OC tags (with a wiki mentioning it's ambiguous as to if it refers to a wholly original character or an non-canon fan-made character), and rewrite fan_character to exclude species-based characterization and consider the setting the character is made for (e.g. Tinsel (Wanderlust) is a delibird pokémon (species), and an official canon character of the Wanderlust setting, so would not be a fan character).

kalider said:
The tag alias #51372 oc_character -> fan_character has been rejected.

Reason: nothing to say about this request...
seems obvious enough for me (Who created OC_c... and was to lazy to even try typing "origi..."?!).

not all OC's are Fan Characters.
They're two different things but you're blending their definitions together.

kalider said:
@All the downvoters - quote from the fan_character wiki page:
How? What's your definition of OC? What is the distinction to Fan Character?

1. OC = Original Character (thought up by the artist themselves)
or
2. OC = Official Character? (the opposite)

The first one is the way I see OC used by artists and the like but that doesn't mean I agree with that definition.

I vote to ban OC tags all together because it's not clearly established what it means and instead establish the official_character tag (applied to all posts with depictions of official characters).
This way one could for example search for zootopia official_character -fan_character to find images with only official characters.

Under the solution you propose, I don't think that a search for zootopia official_character -fan_character would bring up only official characters. For example: my own character, Monroe, is not a fan character; he's a random anthro lizard who exists independently of any franchise/canon. But if I drew art of him with Nick Wilde, that image should appear in your search results as the image contains an official character from Zootopia and does not include any fan characters. With no way to exclude characters like Monroe, there is no combination of tags that would find images with only official characters.

The tag alias oc_character -> fan_character (forum #308396) has been rejected by @Millcore.